Deal or No Deal

Well, the big news in this pre-Super Bowl week is that the Colorado Rockies just traded Nolan Arenado to the St Louis Cardinals, receiving we're-not-sure-what in return, and Colorado agreed to pay $50 million of Arenado's contract to cinch the deal. Shades of Josh Hamilton-- or not?

Arenado is a great player, there's no doubt about that. He's been a consistent MVP candidate for the past five seasons. He's a Gold Glove third baseman who posts a .300/30/100 triple crown line every year. He'll be 30 in April and he's carrying a huge contract. He's everything, in other words, that Josh Hamilton (who won a MVP award) was when the Angels signed him as a free agent in 2013. And we all know how that worked out.

Should Colorado have pulled the trigger? There was talk Arenado, who had been contractually locked up for eight years back in 2019, was dissatisfied with the team's weak retooling strategy since their last postseason appearance in 2018, and wanted to go to a contender. He had an opt-out provision coming up in two more years; had he exercised it the Rockies would have gotten nothing except some cash savings. Since we're not sure who is going to Colorado on the back end of this, we're left to speculate about the wisdom of paying him fifty million dollars to play for another team. Perhaps the return will be enough.

In any case, as Giants fans, we're thrilled to see him out of our division!

Looking at what we can actually see, what are the Cardinals getting? How much have Arenado's impressive stats been boosted by playing half his games in the relative stratosphere of Coors Field?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. Arenado's home/road splits since he came on the scene in 2013 consistently show a 25-30% home-field advantage. He's played about the same number of games (543) at home as he has on the road (536). Based on seasonal notation, the breakdown looks like this:

PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO AVG OBP SLG OPS TB
Home 692 625 116 201 44 6 41 138 56 95 0.322 0.376 0.609 0.985 380
Away 677 612 79 161 34 2 30 90 53 111 0.263 0.322 0.471 0.793 288

MVP numbers at home.  On the road, well, still better than Evan Longoria, but... shall we say, not MVP numbers?

Busch Stadium is, at best, a neutral park for a hitter. Since Arenado's career began it has fluctuated between sixth and twelfth in the NL in runs scored, ranking as low as 13th (and once, last), but never higher than sixth. The quality of the Cardinals' offense appears to affect the park's relative standing more than do its fixed characteristics, but it's never going to rank as a top hitter's park. Arenado's road line would, therefore, seem to be a fairly accurate summation of what he'd likely have done so far if he'd played his entire career as a Cardinal. Will it be an accurate predictor of what he'll do this year and next, as a Cardinal? The St Louis brass clearly expects not. 

With this move St Louis openly challenges the Dodgers, Padres, and Braves for NL supremacy. Assuming they didn't give up too much in return, it looks like a worthy short-term gamble. But three years from now (let alone six)?  Maybe, like the Angels with Hamilton, they'll trade him back to the Rockies, and, unlike the Angels, congratulate themselves on saving $50 million. 

Or maybe they'll trade him to the Giants. Badabing-badaboom!

One of 755

 

It was the top of the fifth inning at Candlestick Park on July 3, 1966, a warm, unusually windless day. Hank Aaron, the first batter up against Giants lefthander Ray Sadecki, ripped the first pitch he saw high and deep over left-field fence and onto the grassy lawn in front of the bleachers. A few dozen kids scrambled after the ball as the man they called the Hammer quietly touched all the bases, then joined his Atlanta teammates in the visitors' dugout. No ovations, no boos or catcalls accompanied his purposeful stride. In truth, most fans on the scene were sufficiently discouraged; Hank's homer made it 14-1, Braves, and though most of us were slow to grasp its significance, we'd already seen history made. Tony Cloninger, the Braves' starting pitcher, had already belted two grand-slam home runs that day, and that's how that game, and that date, are remembered.

But not today. As Aaron turned and jogged toward the dugout, a fifty-year-old man sitting nearby leaned in and said, "That's as great a player as I've ever seen." Eight years later we sat in a car with the radio on and listened to the overwhelming roar of an Atlanta crowd as Henry Aaron hit his 715th career home run, and changed the game of baseball forever with that one swing. Vin Scully, on the radio, let the crowd speak for all of us for some time, and then he said, “What a marvelous moment for baseball, what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia, what a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking the record of an all-time baseball idol." And we remembered that July day from childhood, and we remembered that one home run, that one small but steady step along the path that led to 715, to history, and beyond.

Henry Aaron, who passed away this morning, was more than a great ballplayer, one of the greatest of all time. He was a man of personal greatness, of character, and courage, and conviction.  On the mlb.com website, Richard Justice has a fine article about Henry Aaron. You all should read it. In a year where we've lost so many of our baseball greats, this one stands out as an example of how loss can magnify gain, and of how one life can magnify the lives of many.

Godspeed to Henry Aaron. There'll never be another like him, and for that, we all are poorer today.